Wisdom from Marilyn Monroe: Her Favorite Books
“Marilyn Monroe’s library demonstrates her range of interests. Besides classics such as John Milton, Gustave Flaubert, Walt Whitman, James Joyce, and Khalil Gibran, she read widely from contemporary authors such as John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus, and Jack Kerouac.
The proceeds from the sale of Marilyn’s books were donated by Anna Strasberg to the charity Literacy Partners. This was a logical choice, given Marilyn’s love of books and reading, as well as Lee Strasberg’s lifelong dedication to education…”
Here is a list of Marilyn’s top literary selections, with no regard given to the order that they are in:
- “Madame Bovary” by Gustave Flaubert, 1856.
- “The Secret Agent” by Joseph Conrad, 1907.
- “The Unnamable” by Samuel Beckett, 1953.
- “Paris Blues” by Harold Flender, 1957.
- “Winesburg, Ohio” by Sherwood Anderson, 1919.
- “Tortilla Flat” by John Steinbeck, 1935.
- “Once There Was A War” by John Steinbeck, 1958.
- “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, 1952.
- “The Fall” by Albert Camus, 1956.
- “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, 1957.
- “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway, 1926.
- “A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway, 1929.
- “Sister Carrie” by Theodore Dreiser, 1900.
—Excerpted from “Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters by Marilyn Monroe,” compiled by Stanley Buchthal and Bernard Comment, 2010.
